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Sharecropping Documents + QuestionsTextbook Excerpt:“The most common new farming arrangement was known as sharecropping. A sharecropping family, such as the Holtzclaws, farmed some portion of a planter’s land. As payment, the family was promised a share of the crop at harvest time, generally one third or one half of the yield. The planter usually provided housing for the family.”A Sharecropping Contract: 1882 (Modified)To everyone renting land, the following conditions must be agreed to:For every 30 acres of land (rented by sharecroppers), I will provide a mule team, plow, and farming tools. The sharecroppers can have half of the cotton, corn, peas, pumpkins, and potatoes they grow if the following conditions are followed, but--if not—they are to have only two-fifths.For every mule or horse furnished by me there must be 1000 good sized rails (logs) hauled, and the fence repaired if I so direct. All sharecroppers must haul rails (logs) and work on the fence whenever I may order. The wood must be split and the fence repaired before corn is planted. No cotton must be planted by sharecroppers on their home patches of land. No sharecropper is to work off the plantation when there is any work for them to do for me.Every sharecropper must be responsible for all farming gear placed in his hands, and if not returned must be paid for unless it is worn out by use. Nothing can be sold from their (sharecroppers’) crops until my rent is all paid, and all amounts they owe me are paid in full.I am to gin & pack all of the cotton and charge every sharecropper an eighteenth of his part, the cropper to furnish his part of the bagging, ties, & twine.The sale of every sharecropper's part of the cotton to be made by me when and where I choose to sell, and after taking all they owe me.Source: Grimes Family Papers (#3357), 1882; Held in the Southern Historical Collection,University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.A Sharecropper’s Story: Henry AdamsFreed by the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865, former slave Henry Adams testified before the U.S. Senate fifteen years later about the early days of his freedom, describing white planters’ unfair labor practices and the violent, intimidating atmosphere in which ex-slaves felt compelled to work for their former masters.The white men read a paper to all of us colored people telling us that we were free and could go where we pleased and work for who we pleased. The man I belonged to told me it was best to stay with him. He said, "The bad white men was mad with the Negroes because they were free and they would kill you all for fun." He said, stay where we are living and we could get protection from our old masters.On the day after all had signed the contracts, we went to cutting oats. I asked the boss, "Could we get any of the oats?" He said, "No; the oats were made before you were free." After that he told us to get timber to build a sugar-mill to make molasses. We did so….We made five bales of cotton but we did not get a pound of that. We made two or three hundred gallons of molasses and only got what we could eat. We made about eight-hundred bushel of potatoes; we got a few to eat. We split rails three or four weeks and got not a cent for that.In September I asked the boss to let me go to Shreveport. He said, "All right, when will you come back?" I told him "next week." He said, "You had better carry a pass." I said, "I will see whether I am free by going without a pass."I met four white men about six miles south of Keachie, De Soto Parish. One of them asked me who I belonged to. I told him no one. So him and two others struck me with a stick and told me they were going to kill me and every other Negro who told them that they did not belong to anyone. One of them who knew me told the others, "Let Henry alone for he is a hard-working nigger and a good nigger." They left me and I then went on to Shreveport. I seen over twelve colored men and women, beat, shot and hung between there and Shreveport.During the same week the madame takin' a stick and beat one of the young colored girls, who was about fifteen years of age and who is my sister, and split her back. The boss came next day and take this same girl (my sister) and whipped her nearly to death, but in the contracts he was to hit no one any more. After the whipping a large number of young colored people taken a notion to leave. On the 18th of September I and eleven men and boys left that place and started for Shreveport…Out come about forty armed men (white) and shot at us and takin' my horse. Said they were going to kill ever' nigger they found leaving their masters; and taking all of our clothes and bed-clothing and money. I had to work away to get a white man to get my horse.Then I got a wagon and went to peddling, and had to get a pass, according to the laws of the parishes, to do so. In October I was searched for pistols and robbed of $250 by a large crowd of white men and the law would do nothing about it. The same crowd of white men broke up five churches (colored). When any of us would leave the white people, they would take everything we had, all the money that we made on their places. They killed many hundreds of my race when they were running away to get freedom.After they told us we were free -- even then they would not let us live as man and wife together. And when we would run away to be free, the white people would not let us come on their places to see our mothers, wives, sisters, or fathers. We was made to leave or go back and live as slaves. To my own knowledge there was over two thousand colored people killed trying to get away after the white people told us we were free in 1865. This was between Shreveport and Logansport.Excerpt from Senate Report 693, 46th Congress, 2nd Session (1880). Reprinted in Dorothy Sterling, editor, The Trouble They Seen: The Story of Reconstruction in the Words of African Americans. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994.Sharecropping QuestionsDirections: Please answer each of these questions in 1-3 full sentences.Textbook:In one sentence, summarize your textbook’s definition of sharecropping.Sharecropper Contract Questions:2. ???When and where was this contract written?3. ???What did the sharecropper have to do in order to use the plantation owner’s land, farming tools, and mules?4. ???Do you think this is a fair contract? Why or why not?5. ???What parts of this contract do you think caused the sharecroppers to be in debt to plantation owners? List them in bullet points.6. ???Does this contract seem more or less extreme than the impression you had of sharecropping after you read the textbook? Explain.A Sharecropper’s Story Questions:7. ???What advice does Henry’s former master give him when he “frees” him? What do you think his motive is in giving such advice?8. ???What happens to Henry as he travels to Shreveport?9. ???What happens to Henry and the 11 freed people with him as they travel away?10. ???According to Henry, what happened to over 2,000 African-Americans who tried to get away from white people after 1865?11. ???Given what you know about Henry’s experience, why do you think some African-Americans in the South felt that they had no choice but to sign sharecropping contracts? What do you think they worried would happen if they didn’t?One paragraph answer: 12. Is the textbook’s definition of sharecropping accurate and complete? Why or why not? In your answer, be sure to compare your textbook’s account (you’ll want to quote from it) to the themes and experiences of sharecropping that you just read about (quote from them, too). ................
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